


Sunset (Analog)

by violetpeche



Series: Making It [1]
Category: GOT7, NCT (Band), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, First Meetings, Hollywood, Inspired by Music, Los Angeles, M/M, Music, Struggling actor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-16 05:59:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19312057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetpeche/pseuds/violetpeche
Summary: Five years ago, Jaehyun hopped off the plane at LAX with dreams of becoming America’s next biggest sweetheart.He arrived with one suitcase, a Japanese raw denim jacket he saved up from seven months of wages at Baskin Robbins, and the address of his friend’s friend-of-a-friend who had a room for rent in West Hollywood flagged in his email inbox. He had $5000 to his name, no car, and no job lined up. But hedidhave the most charming, dimpled smile, a bachelor’s degree in Sports and Exercise Science, and a well-earned 6-pack chiseled across his abdomen. While he had never visited LA before deciding to make his big break into showbiz, he was told that so long as he was “incredibly good looking” he’d be able to keep his head above water.





	Sunset (Analog)

**Author's Note:**

> And here we are. I can't tell you how excited I am to finally post this!
> 
> The song associated with this story is "[LA Devotee](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dQ1xiy-4hY)".
> 
> Mature for (a lot of) strong language and a brief mention of sex. All in all, nothing spicy ahead, folks. For the sake of this entire universe, all characters have been Americanized. This was beta'd, but please forgive me if there are any glaring spelling errors.
> 
> Welcome to the City of Angels!

At only 3:24 in the afternoon, Jaehyun had sat in his car in the same exact spot for 13 minutes. He lost count how many times he saw the lights turn from green to yellow to red after their seventh round. God forbid an emergency vehicle needed to cut their way through the street.

The stretch up Barham Boulevard to the Cahuenga Pass turned into an unregistered parking lot. While Los Angeles is notoriously known for having horrendous traffic, Jaehyun noticed it got increasingly worse each passing year since he moved here.

Five years ago, Jaehyun hopped off the plane at LAX with dreams of becoming America’s next biggest sweetheart.

He arrived with one suitcase, a Japanese raw denim jacket he saved up from seven months of wages at Baskin Robbins, and the address of his friend’s friend-of-a-friend who had a room for rent in West Hollywood flagged in his email inbox. He had $5000 to his name, no car, and no job lined up. But he _did_ have the most charming, dimpled smile, a bachelor’s degree in Sports and Exercise Science, and a well-earned 6-pack chiseled across his abdomen. While he had never visited LA before deciding to make his big break into showbiz, he was told that so long as he was “incredibly good looking” he’d be able to keep his head above water.

That’s how he ended up waiting tables at a family owned/regionally sourced organic pizza parlor (with more vegan alternative options than non-vegan) barely making rent at $12 an hour (plus tips!!). The perks included a free pizza with every shift, and the flexibility to rake in bigger paychecks as a fitness model on the side. It also gave him the freedom to crawl through acting audition after audition.

Going to auditions the first two years Jaehyun started living in LA were terrible. No outdated Blogspot post could have helped him avoid the shadiest castings, or warn him of how terrible being on set for a low budget horror film _really_ could turn out. 

His one and only experience on a B-film set was a nightmare. Not only did the “financier” dodge his calls for his paycheck (and only ended up with a tank of gas and a used DVD player as his compensation), all they fed him was pizza all weekend. Pizza! And _coconut_ LaCroix. They didn’t even have the _decency_ to get off-brand soda pop. It made Jaehyun wish he got killed off in the first scene so he didn’t have to spend another week and a half on set in the middle of woods. 

They were rained out for two days, got infested with mosquito bites, and the worst of it was when he witnessed a grip/gaffer/second assistant camera’s sleeve catch fire out of thin air. They were fined for filming at a location without a permit, so they had to secretly haul their equipment to another, rockier side of the mountain. Only to get caught and fined _again_.

The movie didn’t even come out on DVD. Jaehyun had nothing to show for any of it, and he’s been resentful ever since.

After another (most likely) unsuccessful audition for a toothpaste commercial, Jaehyun sludged his way home in his beat up 2002 Toyota Corolla he scraped up on Craigslist the first month he moved to LA. It miraculously only had 75,000 miles on it, but the air conditioner didn’t work, and on this particular day, the sun was sweltering in The Valley™. He rolled all of the windows down with great hope a lick of breeze would whip through as he inched his way to turn left on Cahuenga.

His phone started to rattle in the cupholder, grating scale of electronic xylophone pings pewing from the speaker. Jaehyun answered the phone without looking and brought it up to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Jung! What’re you doing tonight?” the voice asked, crackling through the speakers.

Jaehyun pulled the phone away from his ear to squint at the screen. Behind the smudges and smattering of sideburn sweat he spotted the name **SOONYOUNG** on the screen.

Jaehyun tucked the phone back against his ear. “Hey, dude.”

“Where you at?”

“Stuck at Barham and Cahuenga. It’s a fucking parking lot.”

“Ouch,” Soonyoung said. “When is it not?”

Jaehyun scoffed. “At 3:30 in the afternoon? I’ve been at the same light for over fifteen minutes. It _never_ used to be like this.”

“Congrats,” Soongyoung said through a puff of laughter. “You’re officially an Angeleno. All you do is complain about traffic when I talk to you.”

“I spend more time in my car than the rent that eats up my paychecks. I have every right to talk about it,” he said. 

“Touché,” Soonyoung said.

Jaehyun felt a shiver of delight as he slowly eased his foot off the gas pedal to roll through the light. The car in front of him stopped abruptly, and suddenly Jaehyun was stuck in the middle of the intersection as the lights above him melted into yellow.

“Damn it,” he said. He pounded his fist on the horn a couple of times and nervously looked to his left to see a black Escalade start to roll toward his driver side window. He rolled his eyes. _Who even buys those gas guzzlers anymore?_

“So, I was calling to ask if you got work to—”

Soonyoung was cut off by the ear-piercing horn of the Escalade that stopped two feet from Jaehyun’s driver’s side door. Jaehyun kept his eyes straight ahead, quickly tapped the call to speaker phone, and slipped it into the cup holder. 

Per the laws of driving in Los Angeles, Jaehyun quickly learnt that when you block an intersection, it isn’t your fault. All is absolved if you ignore all the other cars around you until _you_ move. Besides, almost everyone gets to where they need to be. 

Eventually.

“Sorry,” Jaehyun shouted, eyes staring at the red car in front of him. “I’m stuck in the—”

Another chorus of horns punched through his window. Jaehyun was familiar to this symphony of repressed emotions and general disdain, however, he never did get used to it. It still made his hackles prickle at the back of his neck.

“It’s cool,” Soonyoung said, voice sounding tinny and hollowed out in the cup holder. Although a bit muffled, he sounded slightly louder than he did with the phone to Jaehyun’s ear. 

The red car in front of him inched forward then eased off the gas entirely. A flood of relief washed over Jaehyun as soon as he started to scoot out of the intersection.

“You busy tonight?” Soonyoung asked.

“Nah. Yuta picked up my shift. I was just going straight home to chill.”

“Well, I was calling because I got an email about an event in WeHo tonight.”

Jaehyun pinched the hem of his neckline to fan against his chest. Even with all of the windows down, it was sweltering in his car, he could barely breathe through all the sweat dripping down the hollow of his throat. The stench of exhaust fumes climbed into his windows from the river of cars idled up ahead.

“Oh yeah?” 

“It’s at some hotel bar on Sunset,” Soonyoung continued. “I haven’t bothered listening to the artist, to be honest. I saw ‘open bar’ and immediately replied to the publicist.”

“Open bar? Nice.” Jaehyun punched a fist in the air and finally turned onto Mullholland.

“You want to come?”

“Sure. Is Joshua coming?”

Jaehyun put both hands on the wheel as he started to chug up the lane hugging the side of the foothills. It was mysteriously still draped in green wild grass despite the unforgiving heat. They had a freakishly wet winter this year and it made Jaehyun’s hikes through Runyon Canyon both more pleasant with the smattering of wildflowers, but the smog still lingered most days, and his allergies got to be a serious pain in the ass this spring. He had to beg his roommate, Taeyong, to get a phony script of Flonase under his insurance plan so Jaehyun could shell out the $3 co-pay rather than $27 for the over-the-counter shit.

“He’s out of town with Jeonghan,” Soonyoung said. “But Mingyu will be there.”

“Nice, I haven’t seen him in a minute. What time you want to meet up?”

“Uh,” Soonyoung’s voice buzzed through the speaker. “7 would be good.”

“Sure. You guys can meet at my place and we can take a Lyft there.”

“Sweet, I’ll see you later then?”

Jaehyun eased on the brakes in front of a **STOP** sign. “See you.”

Soonyoung ended the call as Jaehyun cruised his way down Outpost Drive.

By the time Jaehyun cut through Hollywood and arrived on Crescent Heights Boulevard, he was so relieved he had the assigned parking space for the week. He watched an SUV try to squeeze into a space a Mini Cooper pulled out of and was grateful he didn’t have to stick around to see the end result.

When he got to the top of the stairs and into the courtyard, he instinctively ducked behind an enormous monstera leaf to avoid Doyoung, their chatty, nosey, and slightly overbearing neighbor who’d invite himself into their apartment anytime a door was left open. Doyoung had a hard time taking the hint of when he should excuse himself, and Jaehyun really didn’t want to be caught in the courtyard with him and have to explain to Mark how Doyoung ended up on their couch.

Jaehyun tip-toed past the water fountain as soon as he saw Doyoung dip into the laundry room, and dashed through the door to jam his key into his apartment. He shoved the door open and quickly slammed it shut with his back against it and let out a deep sigh.

“Thank you, fucking God,” he said to nobody in particular.

His eyes started to water as soon as he sniffed the air. It smelled earthy, thick, and felt like ice cubes were resting on his eyelids. Jaehyun let out a groan. 

Taeyong was burning palo santo again.

“Ugh, what now?” Jaehyun said as he slipped off his sneakers and kicked them away from the door. 

Mark was sitting on the couch in an oversized tank top with his socked feet up on the coffee table. He had a book in his lap with a pencil tucked behind his ear and the arm of his gold wired frames.

“He met a Gemini,” Mark said.

“He what a _what_?”

Mark slammed his book shut and threw it onto the cushion next to him. “A _Gemini_. And he told me he’s now in crisis.”

The last time Taeyong was “in crisis” he had to take milk bath with rose petals, Florida water, and honey at the same time Jaehyun needed to use the shower before an audition. It was _especially_ inconvenient.

“God, I can hardly breathe with this shit in here. Why does he have to hotbox a windowless den? Why is he like this?”

Mark shrugged and leaned over the arm of the couch to pick up a can of LaCroix. Jaehyun spied the gold and brown ribbons. It was _coconut_ flavored. Jaehyun shuddered. _Why was that even in the house?_

“I’m gonna order some Thai food. You want anything?”

Jaehyun’s mouth watered over the thought of a delicious, steamy plate of pad see ew covered in chili sauce. Pay day was three days away. 

“No thanks,” he said. “I’m meeting Soonyoung and Mingyu a little later.”

He turned back to the fridge to pull out a tupperware container full of leftover chicken, rice and broccoli. This would tide him over until Soonyoung rolled up.

“Oh, what for?”

Jaehyun plucked the chicken out of the container, onto a plate, and into the microwave. “There’s an open bar thing Soonyoung is covering at some hotel on Sunset.”

“You’re going to behave, right?” Mark asked pulling his phone out from between two cushions of the sofa.

The microwaved pinged and Jaehyun pulled his plate from the microwave with a dishtowel. “Pfft,” he laughed, blowing over a forkful of rice and broccoli. “Unlike Taeyong, I actually have a tolerance.”

Jaehyun took his plate to his room and closed his door to eat in absolute silence. The palo santo curled its way under his door, but the scent wasn’t nearly as strong as it was in the living room. 

He spent the next two hours catching up on the late night TV shows from the past week. He had given up watching any other kind of television after getting frustrated with coming across pilots and thriving shows he’d auditioned for and had been rejected. It was soul crushing to try and pick apart what the chosen actor had that he didn’t. It was usually given to an Asian actor who’d already got their big break into the industry and had the leverage to get the part.

Or, it would be a white dude with an Instagram following.

He took his plate back to the kitchen to wash up, then made a courtesy stop by Taeyong’s door to alert him he was using the shower. 

After taking a long, steamy shower, and gently massaging drops from every bottle of dry oil across his skin, Jaehyun spent fifteen minutes in front of his closet debating between a plain white tee or a shimmery, golden button-down. He opted for neither and threw on a bubblegum pink ribbed henley and spent a good five minutes flexing in front of the mirror behind his door. He smiled smugly at his reflection. The extra circuits of box jumps and crunches had paid off, especially in his quads.

His phone pinged at a quarter to 7.

Jaehyun jumped over to his window to pull down a single blind to peer into the courtyard. He watched Doyoung hop out of the laundry room with an empty basket swinging by his side. 

“He’s _still_ doing laundry?” Jaehyun mumbled.  
  
He watched Doyoung run a hand through his jet black hair. The rolled-up sleeves of his oversized button-down shirt slinked down his pale arms, and he squinted his beady eyes across the courtyard, scanning every window until he stopped at Jaehyun’s.

Jaehyun was paralyzed for a split second, unable to process the fact Doyoung started to wave directly at him. He jumped away from his window and scrambled for his phone to read a new text from Mingyu.

Mingyu 🐶  
  
**Today** 6:45 PM  
heeeere  
  
what’s yr gate code???  
  
Be right out!  
  
**Read** 6:52 PM

He waited ten minutes before he slinking out of the apartment with his hair perfectly disheveled, denim jacket slung over one shoulder, and tip-toed across the courtyard to punch out of the front gate.

He instantly spotted Soonyong’s shock of neon orange hair leaning against the light pole shielding the wind from his lighter as he took the first drag from his cigarette. 

“There he is!” Soonyoung shouted from the edge of the curb. A curl of smoke flew from his nostrils as he flicked the burning ash and took another drag.

“Hey.” Jaehyun waved and jogged down the steps. 

Mingyu bristled at a cloud of smoke, face twisted in disgust as he walked toward Jaehyun.

“Long time no see,” Mingyu said. He opened his arms for a hug and Jaehyun leaned in to his warm embrace.

“How’s it going, man?”

“Good, good, everything’s really good.” 

“You know,” Jaehyun said pointing at Mingyu. “I almost wore the same outfit.”

Mingyu stepped back and gestured at his fitted white crew neck. Ever since Jaehyun first met Mingyu three years ago at the gym up the street, only _twice_ had he seen him wear something other than a white shirt and dark wash denim jeans. The first time was in navy blue scrubs at the dentist office he worked as a dental hygienist, and the second was in an obnoxious, handknit pullover sweater with a golden retriever puppy sporting a Santa Claus hat at Jaehyun’s annual Christmas party.

Soonyoung threw the butt of his cigarette onto the sidewalk and twisted the ball of his clunky, black boot to stop out the embers. “Lyft’s here.”

A silver Prius parallel parks next to a Mini Cooper with his hazards blinking in the twilight. They pile inside with Jaehyun clumsily bumping his head against the roof as he pulled his belt across his lap. Soonyoung insisted Mingyu and his endless legs take up the passenger seat next to the driver. As soon as they clicked on their seatbelts, their driver hit the gas and bowled up the hill to Sunset Boulevard.

In under ten minutes, their Lyft driver made an illegal U-turn in the middle of the street and pulled up to the curb outside the hotel.

“Thanks, man,” Soonyoung said, pushing Jaehyun out of the door. 

“Have a good night, boys,” the driver called, then peeled away down the strip as soon as Mingyu shut his door.

Strutting through the empty lobby and past the patio doors, Jaehyun thought about the last time he got to enjoy a full night out. His neighbor, Kun, had invited him to The Den for his boyfriend Ten’s birthday. There, Jaehyun nursed a single gin martini in a tall water glass all night that Kun, bless him, (rather slyly) kept topping off with gin and vermouth from his post behind the bar. Jaehyun wasn’t much of a gin drinker before that night, but Kun made a mean martini, and Jaehyun wasn’t in a position to be picky or turn down free alcohol.

But tonight, walking past the velvet rope and onto the pool deck of a swanky boutique hotel on the Sunset Strip, Jaehyun felt _electric_. He didn’t have to be reminded he was pretty much broke (yet not entirely broken), skimming by on paycheck-to-paycheck. Tonight was the night to feel part of the elite class.

Soonyoung led them around the empty infinity pool and to a corner of the deck closer to the fully stocked bar. Soonyoung and Jaehyun plopped down into a cosy loveseat covered in pristine, starched white canvas. Mingyu sat across from them on a bench with a halo of the orange sunset wrapped around his broad shoulders. 

It was Golden Hour, the close of another day living in Los Angeles. Streaks of red and yellow burned over the Santa Monica mountains as small puffs of violet clouds raced toward a new end of the earth. 

The heat of the day simmered, and while it was still sticky with humidity on Jaehyun’s arms, the evening chill made its way inland from the shoreline. The deck wasn’t up high enough to see the ocean, but elevated enough to scope out a layer of smog lingering in the valley below the hills. 

“Alright,” Soonyoung said rubbing his hands. “Let’s get our drink on.”

Jaehyun scooped up a menu from the table and blinked twice at the prices next to the drinks. The drinks were listed at $18 per cocktail or higher. 

“Jesus, who the hell would pay $22 for a martini?” he asked, voice pitched reedy with shock.

“Their well vodka is Belvedere,” Soonyoung said.

That was the stupidest excuse Jaehyun had ever heard. If the well drink was sponsored by Belvedere, wouldn’t they cut them a deal? There was absolutely no reason for these drinks to cost that much.

On the other hand, the waiters and bartenders more than likely made bank in tips. He made a mental note to ask Kun about bartending. Maybe he could give up serving vegan pizza and start bringing in real money at a place like this.

They flagged down a waiter to put in their drinks. Jaehyun had never been to this particular bar before, and would probably never step foot in here again anytime soon. 

Despite it being the dead of summer, Jaehyun settled on a glass of single malt Scotch. He usually only had Scotch around Christmastime when Mark would bring bottles of alcohol home from his clients and supervisors at work, and those were usually blends. He found the acquired taste for whisky to be a refined one.

“This place is nice,” Mingyu said.

“They filmed _Entourage_ here,” Jaehyun said.

“Really? That’s cool.”

“Yeah, I was wondering why this place looked so familiar, then it just clicked.”

Mingyu shifted in his seat to lean on his left hand with a sigh. “If you think about,” he began. Jaehyun noticed his far off gaze and his voice sounded like he was wrapped up in a gauzy haze. “It’s kind of crazy how almost everywhere you go around this city has been filmed for something or other.”

Soonyoung shrugged. “I guess.”

Soonyoung had lived in LA all his life—somewhere in the San Gabriel Valley—so the grandeur was lost on him from time to time. When he picked up his (a part-time, then miraculously turned full-time) career in music journalism, he moved into a studio in Koreatown without a parking space. Rather than having to deal with the nightly bloodshed of having to find and inevitably duel for street parking in KTown, he sold his car. He’d find a way to expense all his Lyfts for each assignment and was the only person Jaehyun knew who actually used public transportation.

“No, Mingyu’s right,” Jaehyun said. “We’re like, all living on a movie set.”

At least that’s how Jaehyun felt everywhere he went. Every minute he stepped out of his house could be an opportunity for his big break. Over the years he had lived in West Hollywood, spotting celebrities quickly stopped becoming a surprise. The first time it happened, Tom Hanks was buying a donut, and Jaehyun was so shell shocked he didn’t know what to do. He’d spotted Mila Kunis at the same sushi joint a couple times, and even brushed shoulders with Ava Duvernay at Urth Caffe. Nothing came about these encounters (obviously), but there was always the possibility he could leave such a strong impression with a someone who worked even more behind the scenes. Perhaps that could launch the start of his career. 

Not once since moving here did he leave his apartment with a single hair out of place. The hardest imperfection for him to conceal was the dark circles under his eyes, but a few casting agents complimented them saying the puffiness gave him “bedroom eyes.” He thought they were crazy at first, but then he just leaned into it and embraced his eternal exhaustion as an asset.

The waiter arrived with their drinks and set them on the on the table between them. Soonyoung thanked them and instantly took a long pull of his beer. 

“So, man,” Soonyoung started, turning to Jaehyun. “What’s been going on with you? We haven’t seen you for a few weeks. How’ve you been?”

Jaehyun scrunched his shoulders up to his ears. “Same, I guess.”

“So….”

“Still slangin’ pizzas,” Jaehyun said. He didn’t want to begin thinking about his audition today. “I have a shoot for some swimwear in two weeks.”

“And you’re _drinking_?” Mingyu gawked. Right then, he looked downright disgusted at Jaehyun’s glass of Scotch.Jaehyun never once saw Mingyu drink any other kind of alcohol other than clear once, and once told him anything but was “ _revolting_ ”. That was a pretty big word for him to use so passionately, too.

Mingyu introduced Jaehyun to fitness modeling at a point in Jaehyun’s life when he was barely skating by on his bills. He was in the red, frustrated as all hell having to pick up extra shifts and take shady under the table jobs all over the city. 

They met each other in front of the dumbbells and Mingyu asked Jaehyun to spot him at the leg press. When they walked back to the locker room together, Mingyu complimented Jaehyun’s squatting technique and asked him if he did any fitness modeling. Jaehyun was taken aback, unsure of Mingyu’s intentions at first. He was used to being pursued aggressively at the gym, sometimes reciprocating the advances and ended up with his face smushed up against the tiled walls of the shower stalls.

He and Mingyu never fucked in the locker room, but they did start to notice they went to the gym at the same time and became each other’s spotters. Their friendship grew organically from there. It progressed into post-gym juice runs, finding out each of them wanted to break into showbiz, and their mutual love for NBA (Jaehyun was a Golden State fan while Mingyu was a lifelong Nets fan). 

Mingyu referred Jaehyun to a fitness modeling agency and he quickly raked in some fat checks flexing in lycra.

“The shoot is in two weeks!”

“No, no, God no,” Mingyu said. “I would _never_.”

“I’ll be fine, I know my body.”

Soonyoung turned to Mingyu. “Do you even do fitness modeling anymore?”

“Not really. Don’t really have the time.”

“And you don’t really need to!” Soonyoung said slamming his beer on the table. “You make the most money out of all of us. You were smart enough to not only become a dental hygienist, but to land in an office in _Beverly Hills_.”

“And I have no regrets.”

Jaehyun almost missed it, but the look on Mingyu’s face said otherwise. It was in the way his eyes flickered down into his drink, a recall to the past, perhaps a wish for another chance. Mingyu’s dreams of becoming an actor came to a close about a year ago when he confided in Jaehyun that he was finishing up his associate’s degree. He started a program to become a certified dental hygienist after he had gone home for his parent’s 40th wedding anniversary. They both sat him down and _“gave him a reality check.”_ He was broken; he was ravished by the years of rejection and micro-aggressive comments from casting agents, and bone-deep tired of living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Now he was the beefcake off Robertson Boulevard cleaning people’s teeth. He made enough money to actually _buy_ an Audi (with cash) and make rent for a single bedroom with one-and-a-half bath bungalow off Melrose. Whenever Jaehyun needed an escape from Mark and Taeyong, he’d swing by Mingyu’s with a pizza after his shift.

Mingyu had told Jaehyun if he ever wanted to leave the parlor he could set him up at the office doing clerical work. There were days when Jaehyun almost gave into temptation. It was so enticing to know he would make well above minimum wage, have full benefits that included medical insurance, 3 weeks of paid time off, and the option to join a savings plan after 1 full year of employment. Mingyu assured him that he was good looking enough to work in the front office, too. He’d like the patients; a lot of celebrities and studio execs dropped into the office regularly. He wondered if Mingyu told him this as a way to trick Jaehyun into thinking he could snap up an acting role, but so far nothing like that had come of it for Mingyu.

As tempting as the desk job sounded, Jaehyun was more resilient than Mingyu. He wasn’t ready to hang up his dreams just yet. But, God, the constant rejection and dead-end attempts made it difficult to not buckle.

“Well,” Jaehyun piped up in his seat. “Not much has changed in the acting world. It _still_ fucking sucks.”

Mingyu turned his attention to Jaehyun and took a sip of his drink. As much as Jaehyun didn’t want to rehash his audition, he figured maybe reminding Mingyu of what he didn’t have to deal with anymore wouldn’t hurt.

“I went to another audition today.”

“Oh? For what?” Soonyoung asked, curiosity lining his words.

“A toothpaste commercial.”

Mingyu swirled the straw in the tiny tumbler of vodka tonic now dwarfed in his dishpan hands. “How’d it go?” 

Jaehyun ruffled the crown of his hair in an attempt to shake of the bit of annoyance niggling at the base of his skull. “To be honest, not much different from the last time.”

Mingyu laughed. “I know how that goes.”

“Just continuous, _terrible_ , fucked up déjà vu, every time.” Jaehyun took a swig of his drink, savored the burn.

“Let me guess,” Soonyoung leaned in and whispered, “you were Asian.” 

Mingyu let out a deep, bellowing laugh.

“No, no, no,” Jaehyun said. He had to stifle a chuckle dangling at the back of his throat. “That wasn’t even it. It was worse—the entire waiting room for the audition was _only_ Asian dudes. And like, every variety of Asian. I met a Filipino dude named Omar, a Japanese guy named Shawn with a ‘ _double-U_ ’, and a Viet bro named Kevin.”

“Of course there was a Kevin,” Soonyoung mumbled against the lip of his glass. “No matter where you go, there’s always a Kevin Ngyuen.”

“I have two patients named Kevin Ngyuen,” Mingyu said. “How weird!”

Soonyoung gestured at Mingyu with his eyebrows raised in agreement. “Case in point.”

“On the real though, I swear, it was like I was in the _Twilight Zone_.”

“So, what was up?” Soonyoung said.

“Well, let me just set up the whole scene,” Jaehyun said. He shifted his weight onto his right hip and leaned closer to the space between Mingyu and Soonyoung. “First, it was at some rental space in a strip mall in Burbank.”

“God,” Soonyoung scoffed. “I hate having to drive to Burbank.”

Mingyu cocked his head to the side, eyes furrowed in confusion. “You don’t even drive.”

Soonyoung brought a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

Jaehyun rolled his eyes and continued. “Yeah, so I go in, right? I see all these other Asian guys. That guy from _Riverdale_ is there, too. What’s his name?” 

Mingyu snapped his fingers in thought.

“No clue,” Soonyoung said.

“Yeah, me either. Not important, keep going,” Mingyu said.

“Okay, so I go into the audition room, and at the table is three women, none of them are Asian, and I just sit down, give them a nice smile.”

“You have really nice teeth,” Mingyu said. “Let me know if you want another round of whitening, I’ll hook you up at the office.”

Jaehyun squinted his eyes and stopped to turn to Mingyu. It wasn’t the most surprisingly weird interjection Mingyu’s made in conversation, but nevertheless, Jaehyun was a little taken aback. “Uh, thanks, dude.”

Mingyu clinked the side of his tumbler against Jaehyun’s Scotch with a wink. Jaehyun smiled and picked up his story again.

“So, they tell me what they want me to do, then they have me step out for a couple minutes, make me sweat it out, then call me back in. And one of them looks me directly in the eye and tells me,

“‘Thank you so much for coming, we were really compelled by your performance—’”

Soonyoung clicked his tongue. “It’s a fucking toothpaste commercial.”

“I know!” Jaehyun howled. “But wait, so, she tells me my performance is good, yadda yadda yadda, but then she says, ‘We were kind of looking for someone Chinese.’”

Mingyu gasped, mouth twisted in horror. “No way.”

“Dude.” Soonyoung downed the last half of his pint with a wince and flagged down a waiter. “Can we get a round of tequila for the three of us? I’ll also take another beer, please.”

“What did you do?” Mingyu said.

“What could I do? I couldn’t even laugh.”

Soonyoung huddled closer to the table. “On the bright side: at least one of them realized you aren’t Chinese.”

Jaehyun let out a long whistle. “Silver linings, I guess.”

“I mean, you have no choice in these situations, right?”

Jaehyun shrugged.

The waiter stopped by with their tequila shots, a small bowl of fresh cut limes with a salt shaker, and a new pint of beer for Soonyoung. Jaehyun didn’t have the heart to tell Soonyoung he hated straight tequila, but again: free alcohol. 

The sun finally dropped below the horizon line and graced the sky with a deep, inky blue. The valley below was now a blanket of shadows speckled in twinkling lights. 

Jaehyun looked over to the bar behind them and saw the crowd along the deck had thickened. There were clusters of men squeezed in tailored suits, all carbon copies of a Brooks Brothers catalogue with their salt and pepper hair. Most had forgone a tie around their neck and opted for a more casual _Miami Vice_ -esque look. They were penned behind another velvet rope in a more exclusive section of the deck, all mingling and laughing as wait staff squeezed between them with trays of champagne. Amongst the crowd, Jaehyun counted exactly three women in skin-tight bodycon dresses and toothpick stiletto heels throwing back flutes of Dom Perignon like it was going out of style.

At the other end of the pool, a makeshift stage area had been set up since their arrival. Now it held a keyboard, two guitar stands— one holding a bass guitar, the other an electric acoustic guitar—and a single microphone stand illuminated by blue and yellow lights. 

A man with cotton white hair scurried up to the mic and pulled it from the stand. He was wrapped in a blood red biker jacket, not a single scratch or wrinkle to be spotted on the buttery leather. Jaehyun reckoned it was Saint Laurent—possibly Balmain—he couldn’t make out the hardware from his seat, but it was definitely expensive as shit. 

Jaehyun looked down at his henley he picked up at Uniqlo two years ago, pink faded from too many washes in their shitty laundry machine at the apartment complex. His heart sinks into his stomach; his pride is bruised.

The man at the mic smiled. “Hello, everyone!” 

His voice was soft, testing. He strained his head over his shoulder and hiked his thumb up gesturing to up the levels in the mic. “Hello…?”

His voice was louder this time, and the chatter scattered around the deck simmered to a polite hush. Jaehyun looked over to the bar to see even the tenders stop stacking cups.

“There we go. Hi!” he said with a grand wave from the stage. “Thank you all so much for coming tonight, especially those of you on such short notice. My name is BamBam, and I’m really excited to introduce you to someone very special tonight.” He started to pace to the left side of the stage, shoulders thrown back and chin up high as he addressed the crowd, particularly the group of VVIPs penned behind the velvet rope by the bar. Bambam cleared his throw and fixed the collar of his jacket before he continued.“He’s _the_ freshest new talent out of Los Angeles right now. I know everyone says this about every act, but this guy is the real deal. He’s already racked up 50 million streams on Spotify for his self-released single, “Paradise,” which catapulted to the top of everyone’s playlists after rave reviews from Pitchfork, Noisey, Rolling Stone, and Billboard.”

Jaehyun turned to Soonyoung while BamBam continued to rattle on facts about the act.

“Have you heard of this guy at all?” he asked.

Soonyoung shrugged then scratched the crown of his neon orange hair. It was the last bit of endless sunset on the pool deck. “He… sounds familiar. I mean, I definitely have, but not off the top of my head.”

Jaehyun wondered if this guy was even worth staying for if Soonyoung couldn’t even remember what his song sounded like.

BamBam hopped off the stage, and three people sauntered onto the stage area and settle into their positions behind each of the three instruments. An amp screamed to life as the guitarist settled onto a stood and strummed a few chords.

Stage left, a figure marched onto the small platform, pink corduroy button-up billowing in the wind with each stride. He kept his head down, like he was carefully watching each step to make sure he didn’t trip. Jaehyun noticed his hand trembled around the chord of the mic as he grabbed it off the stand and turned to look at his band. He looked up from center stage and pushed up the sleeves of his shirt, exposing tanned forearms. A pair of round frames sat delicately on his nose, contrasting with the sharp features of his face. He tilted his head slightly as he adjusted the chord of the mic out of his way, and his cheekbones caught the moonlight for just a moment. The movement instantly took Jaehyun’s breath away.

When he started to sing, Jaehyun’s center of gravity shifted, world flipping upside down. It was all Seokmin, swaying to his music with his eyes closed, lost in his own, tempting runs and dulcet tones. He sang with such fervent passion that Jaehyun could feel the fire with Seokmin’s songs coursing through his veins. 

Jaehyun couldn’t keep his eyes off of him. The rest of the world around him blurred out of focus. 

He performed five songs straight with no rest between to banter with the audience. His confidence behind the mic grew with each song, the lyrics more sensual than the last. Seokmin started to loosen up, and the intensity in his performance unfolded within him as his sensuous runs swam through the speakers. The most impressive moments were when he’d effortlessly belt out riffs with abandon. He never seemed to struggle with even the most intense high notes that flowed effortlessly from verse to chorus with ease. Jaehyun was sure he was watching a true professional perform and not a viral sensation making waves on Spotify.

“Holy shit,” Jaehyun whispered, more to himself than anything.

“He’s good,” Soonyoung said as Jaehyun nodded in agreement.

Mingyu poked Soonyoung’s bicep. “You think he’s got a chance?”

“For what?”

“To be like, I don’t know, as big as Bruno Mars or something.”

Soonyoung curled into the corner of the loveseat with his arms crossed over his chest in thought. “I mean, he’s already got the biggest outlets hyping him up without any label representation, but that isn’t even special anymore. You can’t have a commercial hit without a radio deal. And a radio deal requires money. Lots, and lots of money.” Soonyoung shifted, leaning even closer towards where Mingyu is sitting. When he spoke, his voice was low, like he was revealing the music industry’s darkest secrets. “Like, _sell your soul to a label_ money.”

A crowd started to form around Seokmin by the stage. He pushed up the bridge of his glasses, radiant smile gleaming in the moonlight.

Mingyu threw back the last of his third vodka tonic for the night. “I hope he gets signed.”

“I want to talk to him,” Jaehyun said in amazement. He couldn’t strip his eyes away from Seokmin standing at the corner of the pool deck.

“I was going to go talk to BamBam about setting up an interview,” Soonyoung said. He tapped Jaehyun’s knee and looked him in the eye and deadpanned: “You can come with me for a _professional_ introduction.”

They shuffled around the edge of the pool and over to the stage, and patiently waited around the edge of the small crowd gathering around them. A girl in a crop top Jaehyun noticed taking selfies during Seokmin’s set was clinging onto his arm. Jaehyun felt a spike in his chest, but it evaporated as quickly as it came.

BamBam handed off a business card to the selfie girl then turned his attention to Soonyoung.

“Hey, man. I’m Soonyoung.”

“Soonyoung!” BamBam clapped his hands and immediately offered a handshake. “As in _the_ Soonyoung Kwon?”

Jaehyun was up close enough to see BamBam’s jacket was indeed Saint Laurent. _Damn it_.

They exchanged pleasantries, and Soonyoung introduced Jaehyun and Mingyu.

“He’s really amazing,” Jaehyun said. Out of the corner of his eye, Jaehyun watched Seokmin chat with a bearded hipster. “Like… yeah.”

“Isn’t he?” BamBam said. “He’s amazing. The best part is his day job he works as a CPA in Culver City, then he comes home and writes these _sexy_ R&B jams.”

“Dope,” Soonyoung nodded. “I’d really like to pitch a profile on him for an outlet. I don’t know which one just yet, but I’m thinking Complex would eat him up.”

Jaehyun tuned out the rest of their conversation and turned to face Seokmin. He was tired of evading his attention and didn’t care if he had to awkwardly insert himself into his conversation for it.

The bearded man waved himself off and Jaehyun sidestepped his way into Seokmin’s orbit.

“Hi,” Jaehyun said, offering a hand. “I’m Jaehyun.”

“Nice to meet you, Jaehyun,” he said accepting the handshake. “Seokmin.”

“You were really amazing tonight.”

“Thank you,” Seokmin said with a smile and shuffled his feet. Jaehyun thought his look was more bashful than humble.

“My friend called me this afternoon and asked me to come tonight.”

“Oh, wow,” Seokmin said. He brought a hand up to the back of his neck and scratched at it and glanced around Jaehyun. Jaehyun started to turn to see what could be over his shoulder with Seokmin stopped him with a quick wave of his hand. “Hey, uh, I’m glad to hear you could make it out!”

Jaehyun smiled and licked his lips. “Me, too.”

Jaehyun’s focus started to pan out from his attention on Seokmin. Everything was suddenly loud: the clank of every abandoned champagne flute being scooped up and placed into a dishwasher behind the bar, the sound of a camera shutter sputtering around the deck. Waves at the lip of the pool lapped against the edge. Conversations were abuzz, and the loudest culprits were from BamBam and Soonyoung behind them.

His eyes never once lost focus of Seokmin’s face. He studied the parts of Seokmin that were soft around the sharp angles of his face. He wanted to run a hand through the tufts of hair behind his ears, to trace a finger around the rounded edge of his lips at his cupids bow. Soft. Seokmin was feathery. Jaehyun felt weightless.

Jaehyun took another step forward. “I had no idea what I was going to be dragged into, and I’m honestly so impressed.”

Seokmin blinked and ducked his head down to look at his shoes. Jaehyun kept his gaze on Seokmin, eyes drawn to the mole on his cheek. His face was sculpted under the moonlight, each sharp feature cutting through the shadows. 

“I know we just met, and…” Jaehyun started, taking in a breath before he continued. “This is a little forward, but I was wondering if I could have your number?”

Seokmin snapped his head up and looked Jaehyun dead in the eye like a deer caught in the headlights. 

“Uhm,” he started, then paused to clasp his hands together and chew his bottom lip. It was a cute nervous habit Jaehyun started to notice. “I have an Instagram?”

Jaehyun felt his heart plummet. _Two rejections in one day. Way to go,_ he thought. He decided to pull out the next thing his arsenal.

He licked his lips and flashed a dimpled smile. “Sure, of course, but…” Jaehyun decided to play bashful. He rolled his shoulders back and pulled at the collar of his henley, exposing his neck. Jaehyun offered his most blinding smile yet. “How am I supposed to compete with the thousands of people telling you how wonderful you are?”

Seokmin let out a sigh. He turned to BamBam, who was still chatting it up with Soonyoung and Mingyu, and tapped his shoulder. Not a single word was exchanged between the two of them, but BamBam pulled out a card from the breast pocket of his jacket and slipped it into Seokmin’s hand.

“If you’d like to get in touch with me, you can call my manager.”

Jaehyun had never felt more blind sided in his life before. Jaehyun opened his mouth and closed it a few times.

Seokmin started again, then took another pause. He looked like he was searching for his words. “This doesn’t happen to you very often, does it?”

Jaehyun nodded. In fact, it had _never_ happened to him before. The one thing in his life he wasn’t good enough for (so far) was a lead role in a blockbuster film, or hell, even a low budget, coming of age indie film. These were things he could accept. However, he had never felt more embarrassed from reading the signals wrong. _Was Seokmin...straight?_

“Jaehyun…. If you had come up to me on any other night, I would be beyond flattered.” Seokmin dragged his gaze downward, slowly, eyes tracing every inch of Jaehyun’s body. Jaehyun felt his own heart stutter when Seokmin licked his lips and looked back up into Jaehyun’s eyes. “You’re _very_ handsome.”

“But…” Jaehyun said.

Seokmin’s mouth wobbled into an awkward grin. He stood up straighter. “But tonight I’m shopping for a record deal. It’s the biggest night of my life.”

It was then that it started to sink in for Jaehyun. Seokmin was hustling, hard, working to the bone to make something of himself out here in an entirely separate, but not much different, cutthroat industry. There was a fire in Seokmin that came in the way he sang, and in his determination to follow his dreams. Jaehyun was that person once, or remained as such, with the last ember still flared in his gut to keep persisting. And tonight, Seokmin was about to be reignited.

Suddenly, he couldn’t fault Seokmin at all for turning him down.

“So, like I said, call my manager when you’re ready, and we’ll work something out.” 

Seokmin offered the business card again, and this time Jaehyun accepted it. He noticed a rosy tint bloom across the apples of Seokmin’s cheeks.

“Sure thing,” Jaehyun said. “My people will be in touch with your people.”

Seokmin winked. “Perfect.” A beam of moonlight sparked across the lens of his glasses.

“So, uh. Good luck tonight.”

“Hmm?” Seokmin said and cocked his head to the side. His eyebrows quirked into the cutest face and Jaehyun couldn’t help letting out a chuckle, endeared by his movements. This time, Jaehyun felt heat sheathed across his face.

“With the label deal.” Jaehyun threw up his hands mindlessly, gesturing to Seokmin and flailing to an aimless spot behind him. It was awkward, but Jaehyun did his best to conceal his own blush. The look on Seokmin’s face said otherwise. “However that works.”

“Oh,” Seokmin smiled. His eyes sparkled under the moonlight. “Thanks.”

“You’ve got ‘em all on their knees over there,” Jaehyun said, thumb hitched toward the pen of label executives near the bar.

“Hey, Jaehyun,” Mingyu said with a tap on his shoulder. “You ready to roll?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun said grinning at Seokmin. “I am.”

He takes three steps backward, eyes still locked with Seokmin. They established an understanding between him and Seokmin now. It made Jaehyun feel lighter, weightless.

He finally turned on his heel and scurried to catch up with Mingyu and Soonyoung. They shuffled through the lobby and out the front doors of the hotel. The Lyft Soonyoung had summoned was already waiting for them by the curb. They crawled in to head back to Jaehyun’s to drop him and Mingyu off.

Jaehyun turned BamBam’s card in his hand over and over, and his stomach did a somersault with each turn of the cardstock.

He took out his phone from the pocket of his denim jacket and opened Instagram to search for Seokmin’s page. As he clicked the profile, his phone screen went black, and then a phone call from an unknown number started to ping through.

“Who the fuck is calling me at 10 o’clock at night?” Jaehyun scoffed. It was too late in the day to be an automated robocall alerting him that his social security number was involved with an FBI case and he had a warrant out for his arrest.

“You gonna answer it?” Soonyoung said, peering over to look at the screen. 

Jaehyun cradled the phone to his chest to block his view. “I don’t know who it is.”

“You should answer it,” Mingyu said, craning his neck from the passenger seat. “Could be an emergency this late at night.”

Jaehyun’s thumb hovered over the answer button then tapped lightly on the screen to accept the call.

“Hello?”

“Hi there, this is Roberta Hernandez calling from Final Cut Casting. Am I speaking to… Jaehyun Jung?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to the end... thank you so much for reading! I can't thank you enough.
> 
> First off, I'd like to thank to wonderful mods who made this fest possible. Thank you so much for presenting a situation for me to kick off my inspiration for an even bigger writing project!
> 
> This is particular story is part of a much, much larger ensemble that's been threading through my head for many months now. I took the opportunity to tie in the first installment with the wonderful 97! at the Disco Fic Fest. I chose "LA Devotee" not only because it fit in with this grand idea of writing about young adults figuring themselves out in Los Angeles, but I wanted to highlight the allure _and_ veneer of an "LA lifestyle." 
> 
> As a native Angeleno, LA is a magical place. Living there can be difficult to keep yourself afloat, but if you can make it work, it's worth every minute. I'd like to think this is what motivates Jaehyun to not give up up.
> 
> Huge thanks to the most wonderful beta in the universe, my bis-COTT, my ride or die, my Monday thru Sunday motivation, [Shauna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkwinwin/pseuds/pinkwinwin). Without you... this wouldn't have gotten finished. Thank you for holding my hand.
> 
> The entire forthcoming series is my love letter to LA. All plots will mostly revolve around NCT members. I'm so excited I am could incorporate members from other groups in this story and hope to weave them in more down the line, too! 
> 
> Please look forward to more between Jaehyun and Seokmin.
> 
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/johntographique) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/violetpeche)


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